Critics Speak ROMA’s Language At Critics Choice Awards (AWARDS 2018)

Critics Speak ROMA’s Language At Critics Choice Awards (AWARDS 2018)

Alfonso Cuarón‘s Roma has been the consensus choice by most critics groups throughout the awards season, and that trend was rubber-stamped when Roma was named Best Picture at the 24th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards.

The Mexico-set drama also won Best Director and Cinematography for Cuarón, plus Best Foreign Language Film.

It’s that Foreign Language which makes it an intriguing Oscar contender. Roma faces an uphill climb to win the top prize at next month’s Academy Awards — no non-English film has ever won Best Picture — so this victory helps give it a boost in the pursuit to make history.

Major winners across the other top film categories provided few shocks or upsets, reflecting consensus views that have emerged over the course of this Oscar race.

If there was one, however, the unexpected came in the Best Actress category with a tie: Lady Gaga won for A Star Is Born, and shared it with Glenn Close for The Wife. Close seems to be trending so it was the Gaga tie that brought gasps, especially as that left out the other Actress Oscar contender Olivia Colman from The Favourite. She had to settle for Best Actress in the Comedy category.

The dark satire about the court of Queen Anne — co-starring Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone — also had to settle for just one of the top awards. Despite leading all films with 14 nominations, The Favourite only managed to pull off one major win: Best Ensemble. If critics are that polarized over it, you can bet Academy voters will be, too.

Other pleasant surprises came in the tech categories where Black Panther won three: Production Design, Costume, and Visual Effects.

Meanwhile, Christian Bale won both Best Actor prizes for Vice, including the top all-inclusive category as well as Comedy. With his win last week at the Golden Globes, Bale’s looking like he’ll be tough to beat at the Academy Awards. If he wins the Screen Actors Guild honor, you can safely start placing bets.

The 24th Annual Critics Choice Awards (chosen by the Broadcast Critics Film Association, a nationwide group of TV and Radio critics) was broadcast live Sunday night January 13, 2019, on the CW.